McCAFFERY: Union pick right time to boot boss Nowak

CHESTER -- Nick Sakiewicz walked into PPL Park's press room Wednesday, new Union manager John Hackworth at his side, old Union manager Peter Nowak having been washed into franchise history. Immediately, he claimed one victory.

"All these reporters and cameras?" he said. "Great."

Sakiewicz is the Union's CEO, a life-long soccer player and manager, a force behind the box office success of MLS on the Delaware County waterfront. But his team is ordinary, if that, 2-7-2 overall and leaking popular players to trades. And that was why Nowak -- so deep in professional accomplishment, if not necessarily with the Union lately -- was gone.

It wasn't for the wins, Sakiewicz said. It wasn't for the losses. It might have been for the style of play -- the philosophy, as Sakiewicz said more than once. It might have been for a lack of commitment to the franchise badge, which Sakiewicz wore on his blazer's chest pocket, tapping it for effect. That was the perception, deserved or not, that arose when Nowak's name was leaked recently in connection to a coaching job in Scotland.

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It might have been for all of that, or some of that. Sakiewicz wasn't saying, really. But given what had been going on since its postseason appearance last season, the Union needed a positive news burst. And in that sport, there are two standard methods: Have some woman score a big goal and shed her top, or introduce a new coach. Since it was Plan B for the Union, there were the news vans screeching onto that new exit off of the Commodore Barry Bridge, making the CEO grin.

On the surface, Sakiewicz will reject the notion that the Union need a Q-factor injection. The crowds, he insists, are still large. When D.C. United visits Saturday, an overflow mob will be a given. And why not? There is no better place to see a sporting event in the Philadelphia area. The level of play is major-league, if not the tip of world class. And the stadium was constructed to be just compact enough to accommodate all of the region's soccer fans, moms and hooligans without being mocked by a yawning, empty upper deck.

But just since last season, the Union have lost Sebastien Le Toux, Danny Califf, Danny Mwanga and goalie Faryd Mondragon -- the essential equivalent of the Flyers losing Danny Briere, Kimmo Timonen, Brayden Schenn and Ilya Bryzgalov. Well, maybe not Bryzgalov. Still, the Union were generating news almost solely by moving players that it had done a sturdy job of making popular in the first place.

Each transaction may prove to have been a responsible soccer play. But it hasn't seemed that way, not in the standings. And that's the way the score is kept in the big leagues.

Though he said that proudly, the situation cannot be healthy. A CEO should hear fan grumbling, should grasp some interest erosion, should experience some kicking when not one, not two, not three but four of the most-popular players in the brief history of the franchise are bounced. And that's where the Union must head if they are ever going to be what they should be, a reasonable fifth big-league franchise in a market with the Flyers, 76ers, Eagles and Phillies. They have to reach the point where people and the press question every trade, every game, every half, every possession. And they have to get to where a 2-7-2 record for a third-year franchise heading nowhere is a reason for a management shuffle.

Sakiewicz was hesitant to admit that Wednesday, a professional courtesy to Nowak. But if the Union were 11-0-0, believe it: The wins and losses would have mattered, and John Hackworth would still be the assistant. Instead?

"We'll take the rest of this season by the neck," Sakiewicz said, "and show the rest of the league what we are made of."

That is a way to generate interest, too --- real interest, widespread area interest. And it wouldn't even result in another new manager.